Talk:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book)/@comment-197.87.28.100-20120724115055/@comment-36678579-20181103131439
The film is very different from the books and radio show. The radio show and books follow very similar plots, as the first few books are adaptions of the radio series, and the last few radio series are adaptions of the other books, whereas the film has it's own different plot. The film mostly follows the plot of the first phase of the radio series and the first book, which are basically the same except the exclusion in the books of some minor characters, however most of the first book includes direct plot and speech from the radio sseries. The film however has completely new inventions and characters that appear, and events happen in different orders or don't occur at all. The start of it is very similar, re Arthur Dent's time on Earth and his house being demolished, but it starts to diverge after him and Ford arrive on the Heart of Gold. Spoilers for these next points from the film: Zaphod's character backstory is very different, and Trillian ends up captured and needing to be rescued, which doesn't happen in the book. There's a new item called the Point of View gun, and new enemies (?) or creatures called the slapsticks that try to be funny but in most people's opinions fall short of clever humour and are a waste of time. There's the completely new character Humma Kavula who replaces some of Zaphod's backstory, sort of? He's a bit of a random inclusion, though apparently him and the slapsticks and gun were all based on Adams' inventions, but it's unknown how similar they are to his original ideas. The POV gun has an Adams-esque vibe to it but it's final form isn't very clever and doesn't really add much to the story. Everyone has different opinions of the film, I think there are some things that people enjoy, such as the high quality and the design of the Heart of Gold, although in my opinion even that is a bit too different to the original, and a bit of a disappointment. They had the budget and ability to do so much, and at the time I was looking forward to seeing how they would bring to life elements from the radio series that hadn't already been brought to screen, but they poured a lot of effort in awkward dialogue and overdone film tropes, and in my opinion it ruined the originality and inventiveness that is inherent to Adams' work. They tried to change it for the modern era, however it's still aged as they filled it with the awkward humour that was 'in' at the time, but it's not a particularly enjoyable watch, in my opinion, and Martin Freeman is playing his character from The Office (UK) more than Arthur, who loses some of his confidence and wit. Considering that Simon Jones was the direct influence for the character of Arthur, replacing him was a hard job, but they could've done so much better. Trillian and Zaphod being American is something that people disagree with, although Zaphod was also played by a Brit doing an American accent in one of the live shows and Trillian was American in the TV series, so I don't have many qualms with that, but Trillian had basically no characterisation and was more shy and awkward than her book and radio counterparts. People mainly seem to watch it for the special effects - such as the well-done Vogons, and the scene showing the construction of Earth.2 - and Zaphod and Marvin are funny, although I wish Marvin had retained more of his sarcasm and dry humour instead of just being depressive. Zaphod did lose a lot of clever backstory and is more of a funny side-character, but I think the actor did a good job nevertheless, however the film is my least favourite adaption. If you want a fun adaption to try, then the video game is a lot of fun and is a slightly different plot, but was written by Adams and is loyal to the original creation.